Every day, the lives of women and girls are being destroyed by sexual violence. Used as a tactic of war to terrorise communities, with devastating effect, rape is the hidden reality of conflict.
The UN Security Council has committed to tackle this violence before, during and after conflict, and to help the women and girls left to deal with the consequences. We challenge them to make this commitment a reality.
Throughout history, violence against women and girls has been an integral part of armed conflict.
They are killed, injured, widowed and orphaned. Rape has been used by fighting forces as a tactic of war to humiliate, intimidate and traumatise communities, and as a method of ethnic cleansing.
Women and girls are abducted into sexual slavery or forced to exchange sex or marriage for survival.
The statistics are stark. Up to 50,000 women were raped in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and up to 500,000 during the Rwandan genocide.
Horrifyingly, still, 40 women are brutally raped each day in just one province of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Voices Against Violence: Rape as a weapon of war
- Countries: Democratic Republic of Congo, Global
- Published: July 2009